If such a Bureau is to be established, I suppose it is with a view to some action. We do not want any more sinecure berths for old politicians. What that action is to be we are not apprised, unless it is proposed to clothe such a Bureau with political power to dictate what shall be the system of schools in the several states, the qualification of teachers, the school-books to be used, and the topics taught. Now to do this would not only require legislation on the part of Congress, and any one can judge what sort of legislation such a body, gathered from every part of the United States, would be likely to adopt, but it would require interference by the National Government in the domestic affairs of the several states, which, to say the least, would be of most doubtful expediency, not to add of constitutional right. Free schools are not to be sustained without a constant, ever-present and ever-active system of agencies, which reach not only communities, but every individual of whom they are composed. There is work for the assessor and the tax-gatherer. Moneys are not only to be raised, but to be disbursed and accounted for; teachers are to be hired, school-houses to be provided, text-books and apparatus furnished, and the condition of the schools to be watched over. Is it proposed that Congress shall provide for or regulate these? Is any friend of popular education willing to confide its interests to such a keeping? If it is not intended to act upon schools through measures of detail, like those above suggested, what is the proposed scheme to accomplish? Is it the influence of the national government, to be exerted through a bureau, that is wanted? And are we to borrow hints in this respect from what is done in France? Are the teachers or people of Massachusetts content to have the government of the nation, or even of the state, exercise the functions which the sovereign power of France assumes, over the local interests and domestic police of every town, village, and private household? The impression here is very general that we are governed too much already: that administration interferes, in too many instances, to regulate or restrain what should be left to the intelligent and untrammeled action of the people. Many believe that the Maine Law has done any thing but advance the cause of temperance, by committing to a few constables and police-justices the care and oversight of what belongs to the people of the several communities in which vice seeks to perpetuate itself. In France the affairs of the people are intrusted to the surveillance of a single sovereign. In our own country the people exercise this power, either through their agents, who make and administer the laws, or by a power quite as effectual and far more general -the force and influence of public opinion. Would it be wise, if it were feasible, to intrust to the government the interests of our schools,

and withdraw from them, or weaken, the direct and personal influence of the people?

Is it the moral influence of such a Bureau that is sought? That may have efficiency in a country where the masses look to their rulers for a standard in matters of thought and opinion. But how would it be here? The head of a bureau is the creature of a political party. It may be a Floyd or a Jacob Thompson. It may come from Georgia or Arkansas. It is, in the ordinary course of things, to be changed every four years. And what could be accomplished in that time in the way of progress or reform? Would it not become a sort of political hospital, in which politicians of various grades would be fed and housed, in return for truckling service and subserviency to a party?

From the vampire and the condor,
From the gust upon the river,
From the sudden earthquake shiver,
From the trip of mule or donkey,
From the midnight howling monkey,
From the stroke of knife or dagger,
From the puma, and the jaguar,
From the horrid boa-constrictor,
That has scared us in the pictur',
From the Indians of the pampas,
Who would dine upon their gran'pas,

From every beast and vermin

That to think of sets us squirming,

From every snake that tries on

The traveler his p'ison,

From every pest of Natur',

Likewise the alligator,

And from two things left behind him

(Be sure they'll try to find him)

The tax-bill and assessor

Heaven keep the great Professor!

May he find, with his apostles,

That the land is full of fossils,
That the waters swarm with fishes,

Shaped according to his wishes,
That every pool is fertile

In fancy kinds of turtle,

New birds around him singing,

New insects, never stinging,
With a million novel data
About the articulata,

And facts that strip off all husks
From the history of mollusks.

And when, with loud Te Deum,
He returns to his museum,
May he find the monstrous reptile
That the land so long has kept ill
By Grant and Sherman throttled,

And by Father Abraham bottled
(All specked and streaked and mottled
With scars of murderous battles,
Where he clashed the iron rattles
That gods and men he shook at),
For all the world to look at!

God bless the great Professor !
And Madam too, God bless her!
Bless him and all his band,

On the sea and on the land,

As they sail, ride, walk, and stand,

Bless them, head and heart and hand,
Till their glorious raid is o'er,
And they touch our ransomed shore!
Then the welcome of a nation,
With its shout of exultation,
Shall wake the dumb creation,
And the shapes of buried æons
Join the living creatures' pæans,
While the mighty megalosaurus
Leads the palæozoic chorus,-
God bless the great Professor,
And the land his proud possessor,—
Bless them now and evermore!

THE FIRST NORMAL SCHOOL IN AMERICA.

IN 1825, the noble Governor of New York, De Witt Clinton, urged upon the Legislature the founding of a Normal School, proposing an appropriation of $200,000 for buildings. The question also began to be agitated in other states, and by other far-seeing men, about the same time. In 1838, Edmund Dwight proposed to the Legislature of Massachusetts to give $10,000, if the state would give a like sum, for the purpose of trying the experiment of a Normal School. The offer was accepted; and to the Old Bay State belongs the honor of instituting the first normal school of the New World.

In the little town of Lexington,- where on April 19, 1775, the first blood was shed in defense of American Liberty,- on July 3, 1839, the first Normal School in America was begun. It was appropriate! The parallel may be caried still further. On that April morning, when, after a volley or two from British muskets, the yeomen-soldiers scattered and ran, leaving eight of their companions weltering in their blood, it did not seem as though much had been done toward a successful resistance of royal oppression: so when, on that July morning, Rev. Cyrus Peirce began his humble labors, with only three young ladies as pupils, the movement did not promise much for the renovation of the methods of education over the face of a continent. But, as the American nation was born as the fruit of the Revolutionary struggle, so let us hope a truly American system of education may yet be the happy result of the latter effort. For, while it is true that bravery, perseverance, manliness, and a self-sacrificing devotion to Liberty, may found a free and independent nation, it is equally true that only intelligence, morality, and high patriotism, diffused among the masses of the people, can keep it free and independent.

H.

OFFICIAL DEPARTMENT.

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, }

Springfield, Ill., March, 1866.

NATIONAL BUREAU OF EDUCATION.

AT a meeting of State Superintendents, held at Harrisburg, Pa., on the 16th of August last, it was voted to form a National Association of School Superintendents, to be composed of those devoted to the supervision of schools in the several states and the larger cities of the country; and the first meeting was appointed to be held at the City of Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, February 6th, 1866.

It had been announced in the circulars issued by the officers chosen at the preliminary meeting at Harrisburg, that papers would be read as follows:

1. School Statistics—their value, the points of inquiry, and the mode of collecting them. By Hon. CHAS. R. COBURN, State Superintendent, Penn.

2. Practicability of Greater Uniformity in the School Systems of the different States. By Rev. L. VAN BOKKELEN, State Superintendent, Md.

3. National Bureau of Education. By Hon. E. E. WHITE, State Superintendent, Ohio.

4. Free High Schools an essential part of each State School System. By Hon. J. WHITE, Sec. of Board of Education, Mass.

5. Cost per capita of Education in the different States. By J. W. BULKLEY, Esq., Superintendent of the Schools of Brooklyn, N.Y.

6. Leading features of a Model State School System. By Hon. NEwton Bateman, State Superintendent, Illinois.

7. What are the Greatest Defects in the Existing Systems in the several States? By Hon. C. M. HARRISON, State Superintendent, New Jersey.

The practical character and great importance of the convention will be seen from the foregoing schedule of topics selected for discussion. The Association convened punctually at the appointed place and time, and papers were read upon all the subjects above enumerated, excepting the 4th and 5th,- the gentlemen to whom those topics had been assigned, respectively, not being able to attend. The reading of the papers was followed by deeply interesting and instructive discussions. The address of Hon. E. E. White, State Superintendent of Ohio, was very able and convincing, and the views presented were heartily indorsed by ex-Gov. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, and Hon. Mr. Patterson, of New Hampshire, members of the House of Representatives, who were present and addressed the Association.